Short‐Term Neuropsychological Recovery in Clients with Substance Use Disorders

Abstract

Cognitive recovery in the first 6 weeks of treatment is possible, but, with the possible exception of memory, improvement may be minor in terms of clinical relevance.

Contributions to Understanding the Neuropsychology of Alcoholism: An INS Legacy

“…These findings echo both earlier and more recent controlled studies of memory recovery with short-term or sustained sobriety showing a range of recovery, from little to extensive, after short-term (e.g., 1 week) to long-term (e.g., 1 year or more) sustained abstinence from alcohol (e.g., Bartels et al, 2007;Bates, Voelbel, Buckman, Labouvie, & Barry, 2005;Bell, Vissicchio, & Weinstein, 2016;Butters & Cermak, 1980;Fabian & Parsons, 1983; 852 E.V. Sullivan Leber, Jenkins, & Parsons, 1981;Mann, Gunther, Stetter, & Ackermann, 1999;Pitel et al, 2009;Rosenbloom et al, 2004;Rourke & Grant, 1999;Yohman, Parsons, & Leber, 1985) (for reviews, see Oscar-Berman et al, 2014;Pitel, Eustache, & Beaunieux, 2014).…”

How passion and impulsivity influence a player's choice of videogame, intensity of playing and time spent playing

“…The evaluation of type of impulsivity could also help identify players who are most at risk for developing problematic play and cognitive rehabilitation for dysfunctional impulsivity could optimize the treatment for problematic videogamers (Pedrero, Ruiz, Rojo, Llanero, & Puerta, 2012). Dysfunctional impulsivity, as seen in drug addiction, is partially reversible and corresponds to the duration of abstinence and improving associated psychosocial problems (Bankston et al, 2009;Bates, Voelbel, Buckman, Labouvie, & Barry, 2005).…”

Improvement in memory and static balance with abstinence in alcoholic men and women: Selective relations with change in brain structure

“…Lack of detected impairment may be more common in non-treatment seeking alcoholics than treatment-seeking ones (Fein and Landman, 2005). Further, studies with larger samples have shown that familial alcoholism, antisocial personality, and physical well-being, all perhaps phenotypes for a more basic genetic trait, as well as age and education, can all predict level of neuropsychological deficits (Grant et al, 1984;Tarter and Edwards, 1986;Parsons, 1987b;Bates et al, 2002;Bates et al, 2005). Our study, however, does not have the power (cf, Bates et al, 2004) to determine whether such variables contributed to the Relapsers' initial superior performance.…”

“…One study (Bates et al, 2005) found a clinically significant, moderate effect size for change in memory in a large sample of alcoholics retested 6 weeks after entering treatment, whereas another (Mann et al, 1999) found no evidence for treatment-related improvements in memory tests after a comparable interval in a sample of 49 alcoholic men even though improvement occurred in other functional domains. Cross-sectional studies have shown that alcoholics sober for several months (Sullivan et al, 2000d;Sullivan et al, 2002;Meyerhoff, 2005;Rosenbloom et al, 2005), one year (Hochla et al, 1982;Parsons et al, 1990;Munro et al, 2000;Rosenbloom et al, 2004), or as long as seven years (Brandt et al, 1983) may still show memory deficits relative to non-alcoholic controls.…”

“…Chronic excessive alcohol use can impair a range of cognitive and motor functions (Tarter and Ryan, 1983;Parsons, 1987b;Fein et al, 1990;Nixon, 1993;Sullivan et al, 2000d), but recovery of some of these functions can occur with sobriety (Brandt et al, 1983;Parsons, 1987a;Lishman, 1990;Bates et al, 2005,Rourke, 1999. Cognitive functions most likely to recover, patient characteristics most likely to predict recovery, and time course for such recovery have important implications for treatment (Goldman, 1995;Nixon et al, 1998;Bates et al, 2002).…”